The Last Moments
by pseudonymical
Summary: In which I get incredibly depressing up in Eric's mind.  XD


AN: I am le depress. XD Sorry this is so incredibly angsty. And depressing. XD I can explain. Apparently I'm angsty at two in the morning or whenever the hell I wrote this-I don't actually know? See, I appear to have written this in my sleep. *utterlyfuckingserious* So I wake up some morning with my notebook lying on my bed. What? So I look through it, and this is written. I also have written a 7-pager in my sleep-still haven't typed it up. xD I know I'm not ACTUALLY sleepwriting, I'm pretty sure I woke up in the middle of the night, had an idea, wrote it, and forgot about it. XD  
>And apparently I'm just creepily depressing in the middle of the night. The seven pager is worse. xD (creepier. Not, like, worse. IDK about that.)<br>So, enjoy, I didn't look up the text of the musical, clearly, since it was god knows when in the morning, so it's probably wrong, but I don't care.  
>ALSO THIS MAKES MY 1000 WORD THING THAT I WANTED TO DO. UNDER A THOUSAND. (It's 962. xD)<br>YEAHBOY.  
>Read and review!<br>EDIT: I'd love to cite the quote, guys, but I think I half made it up, half heard bits of it from other people. IDK. All I know is, I can't find it or any variations I can think of it, on the internet. XD AND THE INTERNET IS SUPREME. 8l

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><p><strong>"Human <strong>**beings ****are ****the ****only ****animals ****on ****earth ****who ****know ****that, ****in ****eventuality, ****we ****will ****all ****die..."**

It was the stupidest thing he'd ever done, Eric knew. Falling in love with a dying man. Unlike humans, Reapers were immortal-most of them would live for incredibly long stretches of time, until they were felled by a death scythe. Or the Thorns. And, out of every Reaper he knew, all of whom would live close to forever, Eric had chosen the _one_ whose days were numbered-and not too largely numbered, at that. He'd somehow managed to pick the one who would fall prey to the branching vines of the Thorns of Death. _His_ years would be in the centuries or millennia-but the one he loved would have had mere decades if he was lucky, seconds if he hadn't been.

And yet, he had never been able to bring himself to regret it, even as he had known he couldn't possibly have controlled it. Wouldn't have given up a single moment he'd spent with Alan. He had also, a short while ago, stopped regretting the souls he reaped in Alan's name. He couldn't regret their deaths, not when it had brought him closer to having Alan forever. If you had something precious, something you loved more than anything else, what would you do to keep it? Would you slay a thousand innocent people? Eric knew, without a doubt, what his answer would be: "Only a thousand?"

Animal. Murderer. Terrible words. Words Eric was well aware applied to him only too well. The faces of the dead swum before his eyes when he slept, he heard their voices when he walked through alleys or streets in which he'd killed. The body count for his endeavors was in the hundreds, almost, almost, almost at the thousand-and a short time ago, Eric had ceased to care.

_"You __care __too __much, __Alan." _He'd said to his loved one only weeks before. Alan had been crying for a soul he'd reaped-legally, of course-and Eric had put an arm around him, and drawn him close, and dried his tears. He'd kissed him, too, and Alan had smiled, after he'd gotten over his sorrow. He had the sweetest smile, and Eric often went out of his way to cause it. He couldn't have borne losing that, not possibly, and this was why the casualties were no longer consequential.

Death wasn't supposed to come to Reapers. It was never supposed to find them, never supposed to reach out with skeletal hands and choke the life out of them. And yet, Alan was irrefutably marked with Death's signs, those creeping, gnarled scars that snaked across his body. Someday, those scars would have found his heart, and while it no longer beat, that would end his life. Eric had lived a century or two already, Alan only a few decades or so years less. In those tremendous lifespans, they _hadn't __known __each __other __long __enough_.

There would never have been enough time for Eric to get bored with Alan. He had thought it frequently, when lying next to him in bed, when looking over at him from his desk, when kissing him. Or, at least, he had hoped he never would. He'd seen so many relationships end, some very badly, and the thought of Alan's and his going the same way had always terrified him beyond words.

But it's ending now, ending in a scream and a pool of blood. The reality of Alan's death is facing him, and he knows his lover's time is now marked in bare seconds. He'd been close, so close, to that last human soul, and Alan had stopped him, and Alan is bleeding, and Alan is dying, and it's all Eric's fault. He had been trying to save Alan, he'd never wanted to kill him, hurt him in any way.

"Eric...the Thorns don't hurt anymore..." Alan stammers weakly as Eric drops to his knees beside him. And then... the tiny brunette ceases to breathe. A wave of grief and guilt and failure crashes over Eric, threatening to drown him, and all of a sudden, he knows that he wouldn't mind drowning. That he deserves to die anyway.

Alan's body looks so small, curled in that pool of blood, split brutally by Eric's scythe. He looks so fragile, and his face says nothing but peace. There's even the faintest hint of a smile carved into the still features. Eric's own face slackens to a broken mask of pain, as he looks up from the floor at the mocking face of the demon and his child of a master, and wants nothing more than to die.

"Kill me... please..." He pleads with the demon. "Kill me."

And soon enough, the demon recieves orders from its master to do so. It picks up Alan's scythe from where it lies by the still body. Eric grimaces. Alan's scythe doesn't need to be dirtied with his monster's blood. The demon reads his expressions correctly, and uses the opportunity to unleash a mocking barb.

Eric cannot possibly hurt more than he already has.

The scythe descends, and the last thing Eric sees is the nearly a thousand souls exploding into the air and falling like snow around him. Too little, too late, to save Alan. Eric's loving a dying man turned out to be the end for both of them, and... What sickens him in his dying moments is that it's all his fault.

_I'm __sorry, __Alan. _

_ I love you._

** "Human beings are the only animals on earth who know that, in eventuality, we will all die... and the bravest thing we ever do is to love each other anyway."**


End file.
